Introducing Textpattern CMS 4.5.7

Textpattern CMS version 4.5.7 was released on Saturday September 20th, 2014. Ten years previously, Dean Allen made the first public commit to Textpattern on Google Code. Textpattern 4.5.7 is a security and maintenance release, and should be considered an important or essential upgrade if you’re responsible for any Textpattern instances.

In my last article, I explained how Textpattern 4.5.7 resolves the CVE-2014-4737 issue, and in some respects you may not even be at risk if you’re running an older version of Textpattern that pre-dates version 4.5.7; the `textpattern/setup` directory is the entry point for this issue, and if you followed the text carefully as you installed Textpattern you will have been advised (OK, strongly recommended) to remove the `textpattern/setup` directory immediately after the installation has completed. So, succinctly, if you’ve zapped the directory already, this upgrade should not be a ‘drop everything and fix as a top priority’ situation like Heartbleed and Shellshock were.

In addition to the resolution of CVE-2014-4737, other changes have been made to improve the Textpattern experience, including:

Textile has been updated to version 2.4.3, which resolves PHP 5.5 compatibility issues

The default site theme and libraries have been updated

Various improvements to the initial setup routine, including MySQL 5.6 support

Fixes to `<txp:link_to_prev>`, `<txp:link_to_next>`, `<txp:prev_title>`, and `<txp:next_title>` tags when used in certain combinations with `<txp:article_custom>`

Comment emails of any valid length are now properly saved

Visitor logs now support IPv6 addresses

Articles can be assigned to sections with names longer than 64 characters

Textpattern version numbering follows the major.minor.patch format, and the list above tallies up with just that; this is a patch-only release. The patches encompass security fixes, and to that end I strongly recommend you upgrade your Textpattern instances at the earliest convenience. Upgrading to Textpattern 4.5.7 is pretty straightforward and I’ll cover it in my next article. I hope you can join me.

Author Spotlight

Pete Cooper

Pete Cooper has been using Textpattern since 2005. Textpattern is his preferred CMS weapon of choice. Its logical and flexible approach to content management makes Pete happy, as does its lightweight core and helpful user community. Pete's website - petecooper.org - runs on top of Textpattern and chronicles his day-to-day experiences from his home near the Atlantic in north Cornwall, United Kingdom.